So my long-time friend and neighbor, after a couple of decades being a kick-ass single mom, finally found the true love of her life. Yeah!! And so began all of the hub-bub around the wedding plans, etc.

One day I asked her how her dress shopping was going. She was a bit discouraged because she wanted to wear red and I mean RED !!! So I offered to make her her dream dress. FUN!

She had found a dress she loved, style, fit, everything, except the color. I went with her to the shop, took measurement, made sketches, blah, blah, blah, but in the end she decided to buy it because t wasn't that expensive. I was really happy about that because it made the tricky bits of fit so much easier.

It took a few weeks to find just the right fabric but when we did, in one of my favorite moments of the whole process, her adorable Peruvian fiance proclaimed, in his charming accent, that it was "so elegant!" Mission accomplished.

So I got to take the dress apart, taking copious notes as I went, which I used in reverse when I put it back together.

So, here's the "before" (my daughter is just holding it against her body)... it's full length with a mermaidy flare at the bottom:

I took it apart and used the pieces as the pattern:

No fitting necessary

The bride sees the front bodice for the first time:

Here's the whole bodice outside and inside. I just used the interior corsetry from the original dress:

All done!

And some shots from the happy day. I'm looking forward to seeing the official photographer's shots, too.

I'm so happy that she loved it and that I was able to help her have exactly what she wanted. It was a great day! CONGRATULATIONS HELEN AND JUAN CARLOS <3 <3 <3